


The Forest Outside Doriath

by kvaerx



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Second Kinslaying | Sack of Doriath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28786602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kvaerx/pseuds/kvaerx
Summary: Eluréd and Elurín and the Second Kinslaying.It wasn't starvation and it wasn't wild birds taking them back to Ossiriand. It was Nienna.
Relationships: Ambarussa & Ambarussa (Tolkien), Dior Eluchíl/Nimloth of Doriath, Eluréd & Elurín (Tolkien)
Kudos: 14





	The Forest Outside Doriath

**Author's Note:**

> Lúthien got a choice and then it was forgotten about until Eärendil and Elwing find out that the half-elven can choose. Dior and his sons kinda got left out.

Eluréd and Elurín being just cast out into the woods  
The elves left them in the forest and it was peaceful at last. The harsh sounds of their unfamiliar language faded away until only the silence of the forest was left. Elurín had been in these woods with his brother often. But they’d never gone away from home without their parents and even then they had never wandered quite so far.  
From above them in the tops of the trees there was no birdsong. From beneath in the bushes and undergrowth there was no snuffling of small animals as they went about their business. There was only silence all around them.  
Elurín walked beside his brother. He was sure Eluréd didn’t know where they were going either, but forward into the forest seemed better than backwards where they might run to the elves again. Backwards might mean Doriath though. Might mean home. But there was something unspoken between them to continue on in the way there were going. At least this way they would avoid the cruel ones who had dragged them out to the woods. Dragged them passed fallen elves, and fighting elves.  
“Elurín,” his brother said. Blood ran down his chin from his swelling lip. “Elurín, their swords were red.” His eyes were wide and there were tears at the corners that were shining in the evening light.  
Elurín blinked and the forest around him blurred. “I know,” he said. “They…”  
Their father had been fighting with three of the unfamiliar elves when their mother had grabbed their hands and hurried away. Neither of them knew what had happened to Baby Elwing. She hadn’t been with the rest of them in court.  
Mother had taken them further into the caves. The noises of the fighting had grown quieter as they went. Around them—traveling in the other direction—were other elves. Only a few, and their hadn’t been time to talk to them, but Elurín had heard enough of their hurried whispers and their pleas to Mother to know they meant to run away from Menegroth. They wanted her to come with them. She refused them each time they’d asked and they hadn’t pressed her.  
Two warriors had come—seemingly from nowhere—and stopped them. Their heads were bare, and Eluréd and Elurín could see that their faces were mirrors of each other and their hair only had a shade of difference between the two. They had been smiling, but their swords were raised.  
“Ambarussa,” one had said to the other. “Do my eyes deceive me or is this the wife of he who stole the Silmaril?”  
“Ambarussa,” the other had said to the first. “I see the same.”  
Elurín knew that the two had meant for him and Eluréd and their mother to hear them. The other elves to attack had spoken a strange language that was different to the one Father and Mother had taught him and Eluréd.  
Mother had begged the warriors—actually begged them as Elurín had heard men beg his father when he held court.  
They’d taken a closer look at him and his brother then. Their gazes were piercing and uncomfortable as though they were stripping away Elurín’s skin. He clutched tighter to his mother’s hand and knew his brother was doing the same on her other side.  
They spoke quick words to each other in their unfamiliar language before one lowered his sword and reached out his hand. “Come to me, sons of Dior,” he said.  
And Mother was pushing them forward towards him.  
“No,” Eluréd had protested. “Mother, no!”  
“Go,” she insisted.  
The other warrior stepped forward towards them. He reached out. Elurín had tried to hide behind his mother again. She’d knelt to embrace him tightly and then embraced Eluréd. Drawing back, she looked at them both. “Go with him and do not look back.”  
They hadn’t cried then when she’d straightened up and faced the one whose sword was still raised. Nor had they cried when the other elf had started walking them through the halls of Menegroth back to the fighting. Not even when their mother had cried out in sudden pain and the sword had made such a noise as—  
“It’s so cold,” Elurín said, speaking to try and distract himself. They’d almost cried earlier, but now he could barely feel his face. It was dark now so that they could barely see a way through the trees. Each footstep was a fight against the undergrowth.  
Eluréd took his hand. “We’ll stop here for tonight. And we can make our way back to Menegroth in the morning. That elf won’t be there anymore.”  
That elf. Not the Ambarussa who’d walked them away. He hadn’t hurt them. The other Ambarussa had taken his sword to— That elf was the elf that the Ambarussa had left them with when he’d gone with some others to chase after Baby Elwing. That elf had driven his mail-covered fist into Eluréd’s face and spat “Dior’s son” as though it were some sort of curse.  
It had been him to take Elurín and his brother into the forest. He’d told them that it was punishment for what their father had done. They hadn’t asked about that—hadn’t wanted to provoke any more violence from him—but he had told them anyway on the long walk into the forest. Their father had killed his master. “Tyelkormo was slain by the thief. The son of the woman who rejected him for a mortal. A half-breed.” He had sworn, he Nehtano the captain who served Tyelkormo so loyally, to avenge his master. So he had left them in the silent woods to wander.  
Eluréd found them a place to lay down between two trees and under a small thornbush but they had no other choices. The night was cold and they huddled together in their thin clothes and tried to stay warm. If there had been any light, Elurín thought, they might have been able to see their breath in the air. They had done that sometimes when winter lay over the land and their parents took them outside to play. Baby Elwing had never been with them. She hadn’t been born the first time Father and Mother had taken them, and afterwards she was too small to play. Father and Mother had said that she would grow and be able to play with them soon enough. And not just in the winter with the snow and the promise of a warm fire and dry clothes when they were finished.  
But Baby Elwing was still so small. Elurín hoped that she was warm tonight.  
Neither of them slept. The cold drove them to shivering, which made it difficult. Even if they weren’t though, the confusion and the chaos of the day would have kept them up.  
Partway through the night—or Elurín thought it was partway through at least—they heard a voice calling out from far away. They thought it was Father’s voice at first—Eluréd sat up with a low cry of “Ada”—come to find them and take them back home.  
When they were halfway out from beneath the bush and ready to run towards the voice though, they heard the words of the call.  
“Sons of Dior! Sons of Nimloth!”  
There was a strange lilt to the speech that marked the speaker as unknown. The two Ambarussa and the captain Nehtano had spoken in much the same manner.  
“Sons of Dior Eluchíl!” the voice called out. It was still far off, but coming closer and closer.  
“Back to the bush,” Elurín whispered. “Hide.”  
They scrambled, their cold fingers stinging as they shoved at the thorns. Their heavy limbs made it hard to lay back as they had before, not obeying as they tried to move them.  
“Sons of Nimloth!” the voice called and it was very near indeed. There was torchlight shining through the trees in the direction their feet were pointing.  
They lay still and Elurín hoped that they were hidden well enough.  
The torchlight came closer. They could see a lone figure in it. Red hair, Elurín thought, though he did not think the elf was one of the Ambarussa. He didn’t know what he would have done if it were. Remain hidden in fear or leap out and attack him for what the one had done to Mother.  
“Sons of—”  
Eluréd shifted and the elf went silent at the noise.  
There was a sword in his hand, Elurín saw. The world seemed so much colder in that instant. He held his breath.  
The elf sighed and walked away, calling out once more. The torchlight faded as he continued on but neither of them moved. Only when the last of his voice had gone and only the silence of the forest—the creatures still noiseless—remained did they shift and try to find warmth again.  
“Eluréd. Elurín.” It was a woman’s voice and filled with such sadness that they felt their own tears begin to truly run down their cheeks. She spoke their names again and there seemed to be a promise of safety in her voice.  
They crawled out from beneath the thornbush once more, not feeling the pain of their scratches and bruises or the cold of the night forest.  
It was dark, but they could see her clearly. Elurín thought she was their mother at first, seeing the silver hair beneath her grey hood, but he had never felt so much sadness in her before.  
“Come with me,” she said. There were tears in her eyes. Somehow her great sorrow made her seem only more beautiful. “I will take you to my brother’s Halls. Námo will judge you. For Lúthien was given a Choice and you are her grandsons.”  
They took her hands and it seemed then that she took them very far away indeed, but not so far for Elurín thought he could still hear the accented voice calling out to them from far away in the forest.


End file.
